As we celebrate the start of another year, many of us take time to reflect, create goals and make resolutions. The beginning of the year is a great time to do this and we feel like we have the opportunity for both a clean slate and a fresh start. While Mitch Joel’s book Ctrl Alt Delete was released more than six months ago, the topic of making a fresh start and rebooting both business and career is timely.

Mitch Joel is a marketing expert who has run his own agency (Twist Image) for more than ten years and is an influential blogger at Six Pixels of Separation. If you’ve visited here before, you know that his weekly podcast is one of my favorites. He’s a great interviewer with a keen marketing mind and he always has a grasp on what’s happening in the world of marketing, business and technology.

Ctrl Alt Delete is a book divided into two sections: the first part focuses on how businesses need to and are currently rebooting. The second, focuses on us, the business and marketing professional.

In the first section, Joel describes how brands are shifting toward more direct relationships with consumers. He uses Apple and their retail stores as an example and notes that “Apple didn’t start in the retail business to compete with other consumer electronics stores; they went into retail for the direct relationship with their customers.”

One way businesses, brands and organizations create more direct relationships is through social media and the creation of their own media channels. Red Bull is a great example of this.

Another way brands are rebooting is by shifting from a broadcast mindset to one where immediate value is being provided to consumers. A prime example of this is when brands use smartphone apps to provide immediate value to its customers at a time when they need it. Some of the brands that stand out include LEGO, Nationwide Insurance, Proctor & Gamble and Nike.

Joel also shares insights on how brands use a wealth of data to target and attract customers and the shift to a one-screen world (a world where television, computer and smartphone screens are beginning to be used by everyone for the same purpose).

Information in this first section gives readers a better understanding of what’s happening in the world of business and a clue about what’s about to happen.

In the second section, Joel provides practical steps for marketing and business pros to reboot and stay relevant in the ever-shifting world of work.

First, Joel encourages readers to take a digital-first posture. In Joel’s mind this means that, “the first place your consumers go when making a business decision is to their computers, smartphones and/or tablets. This should be your default posture, as well.” He understands this is not an easy task for some marketers…but consumers are already there.

He also encourages us to take a more “squiggly” career path. The days of working at one company are disappearing and the new normal is for the average worker to have several different career changes over a lifetime. This can be very unsettling and uncertain. What I enjoyed about Joel’s perspective is that he sees this uncertainty as a positive and that it offers workers the opportunity to focus on projects and work they’re passionate about. Through his own experience, he describes this uncertainty in a glass-half full manner.

Joel also provides a plethora of valuable tools and suggestions for ways that we, as business and marketing professionals, can make ourselves more marketable. These suggestions are helpful and likely to get readers excited about the possibilities ahead.

He doesn’t promise this will be easy…but the opportunity for career success and satisfaction is there if we’re ready to embrace it.

As a marketing professional who has adopted a digital mindset, I enjoyed Ctrl Alt Delete. If you’re a marketing and/or business professional who’s not quite sure about what’s ahead but looking for the best ways to prepare for this uncertainty, pick up a copy of Ctrl Alt Delete. It’s a quick and informative read.

How about you…as a professional, what new skills have you learned to stay ahead in your industry? I’d love to hear about them.

Webster’s Dictionary defines social media as “forms of electronic communication through which users create online communities to share information, ideas, personal ideas and other content.” Social media as a term is not even ten years old (according to Webster’s), yet it continues to evolve and change. With this in mind, I attended Social Media Week in Chicago last week.

Due to other obligations and time constraints, I was only able to attend six of the more than 180 sessions. However, I noticed a few things while attending these sessions. Here are four:

1. Story is important. Whether a session focused on content marketing, branding or social media in general, the word I kept hearing throughout my time at Social Media Week Chicago was “story.” In fact, five of the six sessions I attended mentioned the importance of story. Brands need to be able to tell a strong, convincing story about their product(s) in order to attract customers. Content marketers need to craft a strong story about their clients/products in order to continually attract web visitors.

At the Monday session on telling your brand story, Brandtrust CEO Daryl Travis described how stories tap into both the conscious (5 percent) and unconscious portions (95 percent) of our brain. He mentioned that successful products/brands are usually better at telling their story and that consumers often draw from the brand’s story in order to help shape their own.

In the session on content marketing, members of Cramer-Krasselt stressed that marketers need to “do more than tell a story, tell your story” and indicated that consumers in general want to know more about the brand and its story.

In his keynote, author and comedian B.J. Mendelson recommended that the audience pick up a copy of Robert McKee’s “Story” in order to gain a better perspective and understanding of story.

2. Social Media is Sometimes Bullshit. This takeaway is borrowed from the title of the B.J. Mendelson book “Social Media is Bullshit.” Medelson offered his view about social media during Wednesday’s early session. Consider him the anti-social media guru in a world of marketing and social media “gurus.”

In his presentation, Mendelson offered the audience a different perspective of social media. While many marketing experts believe that social media is the ultimate solution to market an organization and its products today, Mendelson reminded the audience that more than 290 million Americans do not use Twitter and 287 million Americans do not use Facebook (his data shared in the presentation). He also stressed that all communication viewed on Twitter and Facebook is being expressed by a minority of people, yet mainstream media tends to represent this communication as coming from the majority.

Mendelson believes that journalists don’t do enough fact-checking and that information shared on social channels can easily be manipulated and regarded as truth when, in fact, it is not. He recommended that journalists and marketers spend more time gathering data, preferably offline.

In addition to the Robert McKee book mentioned above, Mendelson recommended that marketers read Northwestern University’s “Kellogg on Marketing,” a book considered one of the bibles of marketing. I found this as an interesting and a wise recommendation.

I didn’t agree with everything Mendelson said, but I appreciated his point of view and liked that he stressed the importance of having a more broad understanding of marketing.

3. Face to Face is as important as ever. While social media is all about communicating online, I believe the magic happens when we communicate in person. That’s why events like Social Media Week, South by Southwest (SXSW) and Blogworld have been so popular. These events are great for learning, but they’re even better for making strong connections.

In his presentation, B.J. Mendelson indicated that he sees a trend of more social media going offline and mentioned that 93 percent of word-of-mouth marketing is offline.

My favorite moments of Social Media Week occurred when I was able to connect and say hello to friends and people in my network. It was also great to speak and shake hands with world-renowned chef Homaro Cantu from Chicago’s moto restaurant. Interestingly, Cantu edits most of the videos for his restaurant.

4. Get creative. My favorite session at this year’s Social Media Week was “Influencing Social Awesomizers With Personal Content” delivered by Rise Interactive CEO Jon Morris. What I loved about it was the significant amount of creativity that the Rise team utilized by creating an infographic that helped describe the online confrontation between the Kansas City Chiefs and Chiefs fan and marketing strategist Travis Wright. The infographic helped forge a relationship between the agency and the very influential Wright. I enjoyed learning about the thought process behind this and other influencer campaigns which Rise has created.

In a the crowded world of social media, its more important than ever to utilize creative ideas in order to gain the attention from friends and followers.

Last month, a Fast Companyarticle on customer service grabbed my attention. According to the Forrester Research customer research index, only three percent of brands were ranked as “excellent” when it comes to serving customers. Brands like Nordstrom and Zappos are synonymous with great customer experiences, but what about the others?

A few weeks ago, I did something most of us dread: I took my car to the shop (Midas). I had been having some issues with my exhaust and was tired of hearing my car erupt every time I pressed the gas. I could no longer mask my car’s loud noise by blasting the car stereo. I had been putting my visit off for a while, but now it was time.

Upon arriving, I was greeted by the store manager and I explained the issue with him. I sensed the shop was beginning to get busy and was told that they would take a look within the half hour. During this time, I had a chance to talk to the manager while I was sitting in the waiting area. It was a good conversation because I had a chance to understand the complexities of repairing the exhaust system and how they charge for these repairs. The manager showed me a diagram and his explanation began to make more sense to me. I was beginning to understand that the cost of my repair would depend on the location of the problem. We also talked about cars in general and he told me about some of the cars he worked on in his spare time.

Minutes later, I was told that a small connector pipe was rusted out and need to be repaired. The manager described in detail how this connector pipe works and how they would fix it. He said he needed to order a part and that my car would be ready in a couple hours. Fortunately, the repair would cost just under $100. I walked to a nearby coffee shop and got some work done. When my car was ready, they gave me a call to pick it up.

I left the shop happy that my repair was held to under $100. But I also felt good about my overall customer service and I attribute this to several things:

Built trust through good communication skills and rapport:

The store manager had a very service-oriented approach and took the time and had the patience to explain everything in great detail. I could tell he wanted to make sure he answered my questions and that I understood everything. Had my repair bill been higher, I have a strong feeling he’d explain to me the costs involved in the repair. A more expensive repair would not have made me happy, but understanding these costs would at least make me feel more informed.

Helped me manage my time

In the early part of our conversation, the store manager laid out a plan for action, which helped me stay productive. Truthfully, I wanted to grab a coffee at a nearby coffee shop while my repairs were being made. But I also wanted to be there when a diagnosis was made…this would allow me to see the damage and better understand the situation. After a diagnosis was made about 30 minutes into my visit, I headed over to get some coffee and get work done while they were working on my car.

Quick Service

Considering I was not one of the first customers to bring my car into the shop, I felt like my service was fairly quick. By the time the store manager told me they needed to order the part…he had already ordered it online.

About a week later, I mentioned my positive experience to a friend. The following week, I found out she took her car into that same shop and had a good experience. She, too, liked the manager and found her experience to be positive. It made me realize, once again, the importance of word of mouth to a business…and that good customer service is no accident. There’s no doubt in my mind the Midas manager was trained to provide great service…he mentioned this somewhere in our conversation.

As customers, we’re usually hyper-aware of our own experiences when we’re shopping or on the phone. But how about other moments? At a time when we create our personal brand every day with every action we take, it might be worth it to explore how we serve our own clients, friends and colleagues.

How about you…do you own or work in a service-oriented business? How do you provide great customer service to your clients or customers? What’s your secret? What are some of your favorite customer service experiences?

Everyone, it seems, wants to create THE next viral video. Motivated by money and fame and seeking attention, thousands (or millions?) of aspiring Martin Scorsese’s bring their cameras and best ideas to create these videos. According to one source, more than 35 hours of video is added to YouTube every minute. As viewers of these videos, our short attention spans are pulled in numerous directions and often times we don’t even pay attention to the ads in front of us.

Brands, too, must compete to attract our attention. DVRs make it easy for us to skip commercials so we can get back to the programs we are watching. So what is a brand to do?

Create videos that are non-interruptive and content-driven. Known as native advertising, these videos are basically commercials that may not look like a typical commercial and are often seamlessly integrated into a website experience.

One of my favorite of these videos is by Addiction Worldwide for Remington. You won’t see much about the Remington product, itself. But you will see a lot of precision riding from pro biker Denny MacAskill that serves as a visual metaphor for Remington products.

There are a lot of books from marketing professionals providing a wealth of information about how we can better market our products, services and even ourselves.Â While most of these books offer a great deal of wisdom and insight, one marketing book I read recently captured my attention from a unique perspective – Marketing Lessons From the Grateful Dead.

Truth be told, I’m a bit of a Grateful Dead fan myself having been introduced to the band by a friend of mine in college. I still remember walking into his dorm room for the first time and being greeted by this strange music coming from the large speakers and the sight of cassette tapes lined up across his book shelves. I grew to enjoy and appreciate their music and ended up going to about 10 Grateful Dead concerts, including their last show at Soldier Field. I never saw them in their “prime,” but I consider each of their shows a really amazing, interesting experience.

The book was written by two Deadheads, David Meerman Scott and Brian Halligan, who identified numerous marketing innovations in the way that the Grateful Dead promoted themselves and their music. I can’t share all of them here, but here’s a few that stand out:

1. Create a Unique Business Model

While most bands go on tour to promote their latest record, the Grateful Dead focused on generating revenue through their tours. And because they changed their set list every night, fans were treated to a unique show every night of the tour. Grateful Dead fans went out of their way to see as many shows as possible and pack into their VW vans to tour with them.

2. Experiment Experiment Experiment

Like jazz musicians, the Grateful Dead approached their music with the spirit of improvisation. This meant that no show, no song was performed the same. It also meant that some shows really stood out as “classic” and others were not so classic. From a marketing perspective, experimentation and trying new things is as important as ever. Marketing textbooks can provide important information on promoting your product or service, but ultimately, every situation is unique and should be treated that way.

3.Build a Following

One of the primary ways the Grateful Dead built a following is through their mailing list. Starting in the 1970’s, concert attendees and fans could sign up on the GD mailing list. This allowed fans to receive the latest news first and included concert information and opportunities to order the best seats for concerts before they were available to the general public. From a marketing perspective, its important for you to connect with your most passionate fans so that they have exclusive opportunities to buy your product or service before the more “casual” fans.

4. Free Your Content

The Grateful Dead allowed their fans to tape their concerts, even setting up areas at each stadium to set up recording equipment. This was (and still is) very unconventional in the music business. Instead of losing business from this, the band gained a new, larger following. Thinking back on it, I got into the Grateful Dead because my college buddy was able to trade concert tapes, which allowed me to hear some of their greatest musical moments. From a marketing perspective, offering products and services for free is a very controversial topic. I’m not going to say free is something for every business. But the idea here, I believe, is to create a business, product or service so compelling that offering something for free will actually bring more customers and lead to more business. It worked for the Grateful Dead.

There’s plenty that I’ve left out. In general this book is a quick, informative read that would be of great value to anyone thinking about starting or currently running a business. I also think that music fans and fans of the Grateful Dead would enjoy the book. I enjoyed the fact that the authors provided real world examples of some of the Grateful Dead’s lessons. For instance, in the chapter on freeing your content, the authors briefly examined how MySQL used its open source software to grow into a powerful organization, which was ultimately purchased by Sun Microsystems for $1 billion.

I really enjoyed this book and learning how the Grateful Dead’s “long, strange trip” was helped in strong part to some interesting, innovative marketing decisions.

Two Thursdays ago, I had the pleasure of attending the Chicago stop on Gary Vaynerchuk’sCrush It! book tour. I enjoy Gary’s passion for wine and the fun that he brings to drinking wine. Truth be told, I would consider myself more of a beer drinker (with an appreciation for craft beers), but watching an episode of Gary’s Wine Library TV seems to have me reaching for a glass of wine more often these days.

Attendees of the event were able to sample wines from different event sponsors, including Chicagoland’s Lynfred Winery where I sampled a very tasty Pinot Griggio and talked with their wine representative. The crowd was young, professional and very tech savvy, a testament to the power and reach of Gary Vaynerchuk who has used social media to promote his wine business and his new bestseller, Crush It!

About an hour into the party, a very tired, well-traveled Gary Vaynerchuk is welcomed by an eager audience. He’s offered food, but instead prefers to start the discussion and Q & A session. He tells us that now is the best time to find your passion and build a business around it. The world of social media now makes it possible for everyone to promote their product, brand or service in ways that only large businesses used to be able to do.

As someone who loves marketing, I am impressed with his business instinct and ability to spot trends. But I hear something that captures my attention: Gary’s description of the “Thank You” economy, which is dependent on businesses providing great service (and caring) to its customers. For more on the thank you economy, please watch this brief video:

After at least 90 minutes of speaking and answering questions, Gary takes some time to sign books and meet attendees. I am amazed at his ability to effortlessly eat dinner, sign books, shake hands and take pictures. He is noticeably tired, but few people hustle and seem to care about his fans as much as Gary does.

In addition to talking briefly with Gary, I bump into a former coworker, a woman who’s a semi-professional photographer and a video blogger named Ross who traveled from Wisconsin to attend the event.

I also ended up sharing a great conversation with Shawna Coronado, who writes a blog called The Casual Gardener and has self published a book called Gardening Nude. We talk about the challenges of blogging and she helps me out with some tips to combat writer’s (or blogger’s) block. I am amazed to learn that Shawna is already practicing much of what Gary has spoken about…due to illness, Shawna left a successful corporate career to write about how gardening, healthy eating and living “green” have changed her life for the better. As we depart, Shawna gives me a copy of her book…just another example of the thank you economy (and good karma) in action.

I leave the event feeling a strong sense of community and possibility. I’ve been blogging for about a year and a half, but it is the first time that I feel a real sense of connection from it. I’m not sure where this blogging journey will take me, but I feel that I must end this post by extending a hearty thank you to everyone who has supported and encouraged me here as I try to create a sense of community.

To watch an episode of Wine Library Television in which Gary pairs wine with cereal, click here.